A computing platform or device, e.g. a device that handles, stores, displays and/or processes data, such as a computer, may transmit and receive data and/or information in packet format between itself and another device over a communications network. The computing device may include a host memory as well as a local bus coupled to a network adapter.
A communications network may include a plurality of interconnected nodes, and may comprise, for example, without limitation, computers, set top boxes, peripherals, servers and/or terminals coupled by communications lines or other communications channels. A communications network may connect or couple nodes over a local area, such as, for example, a campus, or over a wide area, such as, for example, multiple campuses. A network adapter, also generally known as a network controller or network interface card (NIC), may be coupled to a computing device and used to process data received from and/or transmitted to a communications channel.
Such a network adapter may include its own local memory, an input/output (I/O) controller, and a network transceiver. High-speed I/O controllers are often throughput limited at least in part due to the local bus of the computing device. For example, the peripheral component interconnect (PCI) specification, rev. 2.1, issued Jun. 1, 1995, available from www.pcisig.com, describes, in part, associated overhead for memory transfers. A computing device may transfer signals in a manner that complies with this specification. In such a case, memory transfer operations, such as a, direct memory access (DMA) bus transaction, for example, may be inefficient small transfers, such as less than about 1K bytes of data.
Ethernet data packets typically vary from 64 to 1518 bytes in length. However, a majority of Ethernet data packets tends to be small. As previously indicated, memory transfers of these data packets may be inefficient where the signals employed comply with, for example, the PCI specification.